Heritage Open Days - "Doorstep Discoveries"

The Society was privileged on 22 November to welcome to Harrogate Sarah Holloway, national programme manager of the Heritage Open Days (HODs) festival, who gave an evening talk to us in the magnificent surroundings of St Wilfrid’s church, the town’s only Grade I listed heritage building.

While Members are familiar with how Harrogate participates in this festival each September, it was fascinating to hear from Sarah about heritage at a wider, national level, and her talk highlighted some particularly intriguing and unexpected heritage finds across the country. We also learnt that HODs in England involves over 2,200 local organisers and an astonishing 44,000 volunteers, and were reminded that HODs next year is not far away - for your diaries, it’s 6 to 15 September 2024!

The talk and visit were also an opportunity for Members, and the Society as a whole, to show off to a national leader of heritage how Harrogate promotes its own rich history and culture. To that end, it was especially pleasing that so many of our local volunteer HODs event hosts and organisers were at the event, who could stand to take a bow and accept a most warm round of applause from the audience for all their efforts to make HODs such a success in the town. The evening also included a short talk about the heritage of St Wilfrid’s itself, and how the church regularly welcomes visitors to its own varied HODs events.

There was plenty of time before the talks for Members to share a drink of wine or juice, to meet our speaker, and to admire the splendour of the St Wilfrid’s setting. And next morning, before Sarah took the train back to London, a small group of Members accompanied her to visit some key heritage - and HODs - sites in the town, including Valley Gardens and a short tour of the Royal Pump Room Museum hosted by its curator. The walk ended in Wetherspoon’s for a coffee and chat, a fabulous example of a fine and prominent heritage building with a modern-day use, which we hope left our speaker suitably impressed! Kevin Hales